India / Gujarat government will soon bring in law against 'love jihad': CM

Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has announced that his government will soon bring a strict law against 'love jihad' in the state. While making the announcement in a poll rally in Vadodara ahead of the municipal corporation elections on Sunday, "We are going to bring a law against love jihad in the Assembly. Such activities being done in the name of love jihad will not be tolerated...The BJP government will bring strict laws against love jihad in the coming days."

Rupani's announcement comes months after Uttar Pradesh headed by Yogi Adityanath and Madhya Pradesh government by Shivraj Singh Chouhan brought religious freedom laws to stop conversion through marriage or by any other fraudulent means.

Listing down his government's achievements in regards to enforcing strict Acts against criminals, Rupani said the BJP government in Gujarat framed strict laws against 'gunda' (anti-social) elements and land grabbers to protect the interests of the common man.

"In the past Assembly sessions, our government had come up with stringent laws. We have made an Act against gundas. To ensure that such elements do not cause trouble to the common man and get strict punishment of 10 years, we brought the Act.

"We also came up with the Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act so that people do not enter others' land and take over others' property using bogus documents. We brought this law with a provision of 14 years of punishment," Rupani said.

The Adityanath government in November introduced an ordinance (Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020) against forcible or fraudulent religious conversions that provided for imprisonment up to 10 years and a maximum fine of Rs 50,000 under different categories. Governor Anandiben Patel gave her nod to ordinance following which the law came into existence.

Under the provisions of the law, a marriage will be declared "null and void" if the conversion of a woman is solely for that purpose. The people wishing to change their religion after marriage also need to apply to the district magistrate.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on February 2 told the Lok Sabha that the Central Government has no intention to bring a central anti-conversion law to curb inter-faith marriages in the country.